It's been quite a while since I disagreed with something this intensely.

I built my own "digital notebook" and use it literally every single day for almost everything I do. When I'm in the middle of a project, I use it to take notes, write down questions, organize my thoughts, and save useful web links. It's hard for me to overstate how critical this to is to my day-to-day life. My notes ARE the thing I need most in order to "just get shit done."

Yes, there are "tool fetishists" in this space, just like you'll find in any career or hobby. They get their enjoyment out of tinkering with these apps and cataloging the hell out of their notes. I'm not one of those which is why my app has practically no curation abilities. But I also think it's in extremely bad taste to shame those who apparently enjoy it.

Right but the important part is the notes, not the notebook. It could be notecards, google drive, text files in git, sqlite, whatever. The fact that you take the notes and can find them later when you need them are literally the only two important factors here.

The "fooling themselves" element is in thinking adding sophistication beyond two those things improves the usefulness of the notes themselves. And there's some personal flexibility here too sure; if you truly can't ever find a note when you need it and adding a tagging system gets you there then that's useful additional sophistication.

I think the point they were trying to make, definitely the one I'm making, is that the line between useful system and hobbyist tinkering is a lot lower than people want to think, because they want to ascribe purpose or benefits to their tinkering. Which is where the productivity porn comes in, a framework that only values things if they are or contribute to "productivity" demands everything be productive, demands that you justify it.

But truly and honestly if you have a flat folder of text files and grep you have what you need and beyond that is tinkering. That's what people are fooling themselves about.

Yes, thatis the problem The post mentions over two dozen theories/frameworks/techniques that amount to useless sophistication. Taking notes is the point, you don’t need two dozen theories

> After using several of these "second brain" apps & systems and ultimately creating my own "second brain" app, I agree with this, and the general sentiment behind it. This space is just a rebranded subset of self-help. It's the productivity porn market. Roam Research was the first to realize the cash gains to be made in this space. Their marketing hook took off, they got their VC handout, and they haven't been heard from since.

Honestly, this is probably a good description of your situation, but certainly not everyone's. I use Obsidian every day and nothing you've written resonates with me. I dump things into the tool. I find those things when I need them. I'm much, much more productive as a result. Plus the sync is the best I've ever used. Works flawlessly every time on my Linux desktop, my Surface running Windows, my Chromebook, and my Android phone.

Maybe your work doesn't require these tools?

Did you fuss over the differences between obsidian and one note and google keep or whatever? Or did you just decide one day you need to note things down more and found obsidian and stuck to it?

If there’s any productivity gain to be had here, it’s because you chose to write things down in a system you can search. Maybe the hyperlinking works, maybe it doesn’t. I’ve met a decent number of productive smart people and have seen zero correlation between note taking styles (or even note taking at all) and their outputs.

I used to think this way:

> If there’s any productivity gain to be had here, it’s because you chose to write things down in a system you can search. Maybe the hyperlinking works, maybe it doesn’t.

I realized that my system was useless if it didn't do 100% of what I needed. Sure, search usually works, but sometimes I need linking. If I'm taking notes on a paper, search doesn't help - I need a link to the paper and convenient storage.

> I’ve met a decent number of productive smart people and have seen zero correlation between note taking styles (or even note taking at all) and their outputs.

That's because needs vary widely. My father ran a business doing things like installing water and power lines. He didn't have an elaborate notes system, but he had one that was elaborate enough. Some things had to be captured and had to be retrievable with certainty. It had to be something he could do from the inside of the backhoe.

I'm an academic. My needs are vastly different. His system would not have helped me at all.

I'm not denying that some people waste time on these things. I don't see that as an argument that all of these apps and systems are useless though.

Most smart people I know are academics though. Professors. They’re actually notorious for NOT taking notes! Except maybe when they’re writing a book or something.

The Zettelkasten method was created initially by a professor to do his research work.

> Except maybe when they’re writing a book or something.

This may be part of the difference; Luhmann wrote like 70 books or something.

Well, some of the smartest I've known to take notes e.g. Dijkstra and Knuth.

I think I found the easiest solution to this. I only change my knowledge management system at the top of the year. Whatever I decide on for that year, I stick to it, whether I like it or hate it by June.

Some years I use filing cabinets. Some years I use OneNote. Some years I use Markdown. It all depends on the collection of tasks I expect to be doing.

At the end of the year, I make everything (worth saving) a PDF, no matter what system I used - because they're very utilitarian. Then I decide if I'm going to keep using the same system. For the last three years, I've used self-hosted GitLab exclusively, even for non-code stuff.

I doubt I'll adopt Obsidian next year, but if you don't already have a system, it's probably as good as any.

I find archiving them as PDFs inconvenient to grep unlike plain text.

> (1) distract ourselves (2) give us the feeling of accomplishment

I agree. A lot of personal systems like this are indeed unconsciously used to (1) and (2). This is especially the case when you try to implement a very complex+generic one like this vault. I can guarantee 90-99% failure, albeit you may learn something along the way !

Also, it is not a "BRAIN". It is worth stressing that because It is a bad and misleading name (almost as bad as PKM)

But you are generalizing too much. The problem is the "just" in your "it's just procrastination."

The thread is pointing to many benefits. For ME, it is not even about productivity anymore. It is about "healthier" work environment (in research-intensive activities).

More than that, It is not even about "ME" anymore. It about creating better tools and systems in the long term. Obsession and Fooling-ourselves (at the "MICRO" level) is exactly what feeds that larger MACRO evolutionary dynamics.

> We're not really achieving or producing

Speaking of fooling-ourselves, I feel that getting things done itself (at any cost) is also sometimes just a way to distract ourselves and give us the feeling of accomplishment, and also to "avoid that pain" (all three you cited). We may also be fooling ourselves at occasions here too in our rush to “producing” and "“producing” stuff. just saying…

And just like that we've hit infinite regress and the core existential questions to it all, why must we accomplish, is it to be happy? Accomplishments are finite and can die/fade away/stop, so placing your worth and peace of mind on them is subject to eventual failure and maybe even a crisis down the road, you'll keep wanting more, Kiarostami once said, responding to if he feels proud of his work, something to the affect of, 'proud is too big a word for humans'. So what is curation then? Is a PKM just a technology to help us remember? Again, to what end, I suppose it's all just instrumental

a page from Lao Tzu comes to mind

> Those who think to win the world > by doing something to it, > I see them come to grief. >For the world is a sacred object. >Nothing is to be done to it. >To do anything to it is to damage it. > To seize it is to lose it.

That seems like a bit of an overreaction. Sure, tools are not magic and you should not use tools for the tools' sake but because they are useful.

Same with, say, ring binders: Having some is probably better than none, but if you have one hundred you have other problems.

Same for hammers, pans,.... Buying them won't magically teach you skills, but if you want to learn skills tools will help you.